Mom, I am.

Welcome to the I Am Mom! Enough! Carnival hosted by Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama and Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children. This Carnival is dedicated to empowering ALL parents who practice and promote and peaceful, loving, attachment parenting philosophy. We have asked other parents to help us show the critics and the naysayers that attachment parenting is beautiful, uplifting, and unbelievably beneficial and NORMAL!

In addition to the Carnival, Joni from Tales of a Kitchen Witch and Jennifer from True Confessions of a Real Mommy are co-hosting a Linky Party. Please stop by either blog to share any of your posts on the topic.

Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants. Post topics are wide and varied and every one is worth a read.

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Parenting beliefs are like religion: lots of people have them, it's easy to get in an argument about them, and no two people are wrong.

Yep, you read that right: regardless of what (spiritual or parenting) path you're on, I don't believe you're doing it wrong.

Life (to me) just isn't that black and white.

No one person has the right answer, the magic solution, the perfect approach to life for all other people on this Earth. There is just far too much diversity (thank goodness!) for that to ever ring true to me. Each unique person has the power to explore and discover for herself what works best for her and their family, what resonates with her, and what feels most authentic to her as a parent, an individual, and a human being.

Sunday Surf: Contentment and Mothering

I'm catching up on Sunday Surfing today (translation: this is a long one—hope you're ready to do some reading!), as I've been not feeling as inclined to write the past few weeks. Things have been busy and kind of complicated lately...which is a post for another day. I will say that we're all enjoying this long weekend together, taking it easy while also taking small steps to continue to get more settled into our new house.

The past two evenings have been punctuated by quick after-dinner thunderstorms, a rare occurrence in Portland (aside from the past two nights, I only recall one other thunderstorm since we moved here five years ago). I've really enjoyed getting to be a spectator to the energy in that kind of storm, observing and drawing on it, feeling the vibration of the thunder move through my body. Nature really is awesome.

I recently participated in the Carnival of Weaning, reflecting on my experiences with Daniel's weaning just a few months ago. I wrote up a quick tutorial for how to make a photo book like the one I made for us to commemorate the occasion. Daniel loves this book. He asks me to read it to him at least once per day, and he enjoys talking about what we're doing in every photograph, pointing out our hands and eyes and discussing drinking mama's milk. I'm really glad I took the time to make this opportunity for us to share this story together!

There are so many thoughtful and informative posts to read from this carnival—I encourage you to browse through the list at the bottom of my post and learn more about others' personal experiences with weaning.

A big Thank you! to Rebekah and Chris of Liberated Family for their recent guest post on how our families can work toward reducing household waste. I'm very impressed that this family of four manages to only produce half a paper grocery bag of garbage per week! I I think my family does fairly well in our continual efforts to reduce our carbon footprint, but Rebekah and Chris inspire me to try even harder to lessen our impact on the environment. I hope you'll check out their post for some helpful tips, then head over to Liberated Family and poke around—they've got many excellent green living resources which I know you'll find helpful! (If you feel so inclined, you could also check out their Etsy shop, Born at Home Toys, where they feature gorgeous handmade wooden toys. Daniel loves his cherry hatchback!)

Have you entered to win my latest giveaway yet? Patricia Sereno is offering Anktangle readers a chance to win one of ten Moonrise Lullaby Celtic harp CDs, a collection perfectly suited to soothe a fussy baby into a restful sleep. I truly love this music, and I know you and the little one(s) in your life will too! I hope you'll check out the giveaway to learn more about the artist and her mission, and then use the easy Rafflecopter system to enter to win. (Open Worldwide; ends June 9th at 11:59PM Eastern.)

Here are a few of the great things I've read lately:

Happy Birthday, Jaymz!

Thought you might like to hear this sweet and simple message from Daniel.

Love,
Us

Week 21: Miscellaneous

Days 137-143:

Morning reflection

Jaymz's pupil is always a little too dilated.
(I know you wanted to know this about him.)
[Happy birthday, Love. =]

Celebrating Weaning

Welcome to the Carnival of Weaning: Weaning - Your Stories

This post was written for inclusion in the Carnival of Weaning hosted by Code Name: Mama and Aha! Parenting. Our participants have shared stories, tips, and struggles about the end of the breastfeeding relationship.

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Breastfeeding has been a huge part of my mothering until (relatively) recently. For the most part, I really enjoyed nursing Daniel and I also found writing about our journey to be very valuable. When Daniel was ten weeks old, I was inspired to reflect on my intention to practice child-led weaning by seeing a three-year-old nurse at the Big Latch On. After Daniel turned one, I thought a lot about our breastfeeding relationship and I made a point to check in with both of us to make sure we still wanted to continue (and we did). A month or so later, Daniel's nursing habits changed suddenly, and I feared he was weaning. I wrote a piece for Dionna's Joys of Nursing Past Infancy series about the ways our nursing relationship had changed over time—and also the ways it had stayed the same. Turns out, Daniel nursed for nearly six more months, deciding to wean around twenty months old.

Daniel's weaning was a difficult transition for me, perhaps mainly because I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know that I would experience such a dramatic hormonal shift in the days and weeks after his last nursing session. I didn't know that I would feel uncomfortably full of milk to the point of leaking, similar to the early days of engorgement. (Daniel was only nursing once a day at the end, sometimes for only a minute or two, so I assumed that this transition was gradual enough for my breasts to get the hint!) I didn't know I would feel so out of place in my body, having grown and fed another human being with it for close to three years.

More than anything, I struggled with how to express what I was going through to those who care about me, and I wondered how to mark the occasion in a way that would feel most meaningful to me.

Giveaway: Moonrise Lullaby Celtic Harp CD (10 Copies!) $20 ARV {6/9; Worldwide}

Patricia Sereno is offering Anktangle readers a chance to win one of 10 copies of her CD Moonrise Lullaby, a value of $20. Moonrise Lullaby is a collection of soothing Celtic harp pieces designed to calm your baby into a peaceful sleep.

My thoughts and experiences:

I truly love this CD. Patricia Sereno really has a gift for writing lullabies! Each one has a unique sound and mood from the last, yet they all come together as a cohesive unit, set to rock your baby to sleep with the soft strings of the Celtic harp. The songs in Moonrise Lullaby flow smoothly from one to the next, with no abrupt interruptions or startling introductions which might wake Baby when she's in that in-between sleep stage.

I've enjoyed rocking Daniel to sleep at nap time while listening to this album. He is fairly picky about what types of sounds he'll tolerate during the early sleep stage, but Moonrise Lullaby goes over well even with my sensitive kiddo. I play it very softly over speakers in the room, and the notes of the lullabies float in over us as we rock in the glider together. I've found myself rocking with Daniel longer than usual lately (even after he's fast asleep), because I so much enjoy the peace and sense of calm that I feel while holding and breathing with him in that space.

Week 20: Fasting & Food

Days 130-136:

The day I fell down the stairs...again.
(This is where it happened; notice the lack of handrail.)

Just hangin' out, drinkin' some juice.